President Hosni Mubarak's recent instructions to the Government to ensure greater transparency concerning the sale of State-owned land must have reinforced long-standing suspicions that vast swathes of land across the country have been distributed to fortunate businesspeople, and Egyptian and Arab companies. Mubarak's emphasis came hours after the State-run Central Agency for Auditing watchdog revealed that hundreds of thousands of acres in desirable locations had been sold so cheaply that the auctions were more like friendly coffee mornings, rather than aggressive attempts to drive up the bidding. Former and serving Cabinet ministers, as well as MPs, have failed to distance themselves from allegations that they were at the head of a long queue of fortunate buyers of State-owned land; some of them are said to have acted like middlemen in return for mouthwatering perks. The absence of transparency, coupled with outrageously relaxed control on the part of the concerned ministries and other authorities, encouraged buyers to violate their contractual obligations and use their land for hugely profitable projects. For example, agricultural investment companies, which were given land for astonishing low prices, in order to reclaim it, have been building tourist villages on it instead. Mubarak's demand for more transparency has put certain ministries and other official bodies in a very tight corner. The biggest challenge will come when these agencies decide to renegotiate the prices with the buyers, according to today's market value of the land they bought. Will these official bodies be accused of violating their contractual obligations? And will the renegotiation of prices dent the confidence of foreign and Arab investors in the Government's investment laws and incentives? Perhaps we need a unified official body solely responsible for the sales of Stateowned land ��" future sales, not the ones that have already happened.
Traffic congestion in Cairo is among the most vexed problems facing the populous capital. In addition to the huge number of vehicles on the roads, four times their actual capacity, leading to massive traffic jams, we have the chronic problem of public disregard for traffic rules and disrespect for traffic officers. The Ministry of the Interior keeps issuing more laws with tougher fines for those who break traffic rules. However, these codes have abysmally failed to have any effect, no small thanks to the exceptions that are granted to certain influential people who escape punishment, which only encourages ordinary citizens to follow suit and break the laws. However, a change has come to some Cairo streets with the installation of electronic traffic lights that are equipped with cameras and screens that count the seconds between changes in the traffic lights from red to yellow to green again. In most streets where these new traffic signals are installed, the flow of traffic has become smoother and more disciplined, not only because of the presence of cameras that register violations but also because of the public perception of the efficiency and justice of this system. The more we implement these systems in Cairo's streets, the more we will ensure the easy flow of traffic, even during rush hours. This experiment proves the public's readiness to be committed to the rule of law, if people are sure that these laws will be enforced upon all persons equally, regardless of their social or economic status. In the meantime, the Government has to proceed ahead with creating more connecting roads and bridges to ease movement across the city and connect the urban centre with the growing suburban communities on its borders, along with expanding the underground metro lines to these new communities to ease vehicular traffic on surface roads.
